The goals of the Large-Scale Genome Sequencing Production Center (Center) described in this application are to: (1) provide proven expertise in large-scale DNA sequencing and bioinformatics to the study of high priority eukaryotic species to consistently produce draft and finished genome sequences and annotation of the highest possible quality; (2) rapidly release genome sequence data, sequence traces, assemblies, and associated annotation to the public domain; (3) provide reagents and software developed under this grant to the scientific community; and (4) investigate and implement novel methods and technologies that can significantly increase sequencing throughput while decreasing sequencing costs. The Center will accomplish these goals through the application of a robust and sophisticated pipeline for large-scale genome sequencing and analysis that has been developed by a team of investigators that are world leaders in this field and have collectively sequenced more genomes than any other sequencing center. These include more than 40 microbial species, 13 parasitic and fungal pathogens, 2 plant species (Arabidopsis thaliana and rice), 2 insect species (Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae), and 4 mammalian species (human, mouse, rat, and dog) to date, totaling more than 100 million sequencing reactions and over 10 billion base pairs of assembled genome sequence. Sequencing activities described in this application will be carried out at the newly created J. Craig Venter Science Foundation Joint Technology Center (JTC), a TIGR affiliate. The JTC laboratories have been designed to support high-throughput production pipelines for shotgun and BAC end sequencing projects and for PCR-based resequencing and SNP discovery at a level of 45 million sequencing reactions per year in its first year of operation. The JTC is designed to scale to over 120 million sequencing reactions per year. The initial per lane costs for the TIGR/JTC Sequencing Production Center are less than $0.94 and finishing costs are $.0.001 per basepair with significant reductions in the outlying years. [unreadable] [unreadable]